WYCHAVON District Council has set aside £20,000 to help ensure a new community hospital is built in Evesham.

Councillors want to ensure momentum for the new hospital is maintained despite upheaval at South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust. The trust is deciding how it is going to plug an £8m funding gap in 2006/07. It had £13m `top-sliced' from its budget to help pay off national NHS debts, and bosses have not ruled out redundancies and service cuts to balance their books.

Added to that, the Government announced last week that it intended to merge the trust with Redditch and Bromsgrove PCT and Wyre Forest PCT to form a county-wide service similar to the former Worcestershire Health Authority.

Wychavon's executive board member for health, Councillor Judy Pearce, said health services were residents' number one priority in Evesham.

"That's why one of the council's key priorities is to work with our partners to secure better local health facilities, and in particular to lobby for a new hospital in Evesham," she said.

"While the PCTs are in flux over restructuring and funding issues, it's extremely important that momentum is maintained to ensure that future healthcare facilities in Evesham meet the community's needs."

Coun Pearce added that it was imperative that the development work to shape a new hospital began as soon as possible.

"We've already had indications that local GPs, the Friends of the Hospital and other organisations are keen to work with us to ensure a `bottom-up' approach to an affordable and sustainable solution for Evesham," she said.

"We are prepared to put in some of our resources to support the further development of a case for a new hospital to get the ball rolling on this."

Paul Bates, acting chief executive of the PCT, met clinical staff from across the trust on Friday to see what money-saving initiatives they had developed before proposals are finalised next month.

"We have to make difficult decisions in order to balance our books within the next financial year and so we need to produce a plan to eliminate the financial gap," he said.

"I am in the process of setting up a series of meetings to engage with individuals and organisations to explain how we intend to address our significant financial shortfall."